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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25253632">Sometimes the best intentions just ain't enough</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudrage/pseuds/cloudrage'>cloudrage</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Ordinary People, Angst, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne-centric, Dick Grayson is a Good Brother, Divorce, F/M, Family Feels, Songfic, When you love someone, helena is a kid, this is a mess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:48:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,253</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25253632</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudrage/pseuds/cloudrage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Where a 13 year old Damian tries to cope with his parents divorce.</p><p>or I found this draft I wrote in 2018 based on the song When you love someone by James TW and did this.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bruce Wayne &amp; Damian Wayne, Damian Wayne &amp; Helena Wayne, Dick Grayson &amp; Damian Wayne, Talia al Ghul &amp; Damian Wayne, Talia al Ghul/Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sometimes the best intentions just ain't enough</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm still thinking about adding a second part or make this a series about how divorce affects characters, but for now just have this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Damian's parents were together even tough everything in themselves and their lives told them not to. They lasted for a while, were married for a few years until they decided to break it for good.</p><p>She was a hard woman, Talia Al Ghul, his mother. Cold, beautiful, raised in a land where only the strong could survive, she was the strongest, a linage of powerful Arabic women and men, and like so, she always wanted Damian to be the best at everything, sometimes maybe a little too careless when it came to pushing too hard, to being too much, but it was what she knew, what she grew up with, so she couldn’t really tell the difference between being too much and not trying hard enough.</p><p>Bruce was almost the same, colder, more emotionally constipated, a little more broken. Sometimes Damian thought the only thing that held him together were his business suits and whiskey, but he was good, nice to him, he too wanted Damian to be the best version of himself, even if he didn’t always show it, even when he looked at him and wished to see someone else. Damian understood, he could never be the Dick Grayson his father wanted no matter how much he tried, believe it, he understood.</p><p>While the divorce arrangements were being done, Damian tried to stay as far from his house as possible, trying to avoid the fights, the hushed discussions, he hated it when they tried to pretend like he didn’t know anything, like he didn’t hear the broken glass, the loud doors and the screaming, he wasn’t blind, he knew this was a long time coming, hell, his father had Helena while he was still married, his mother was seeing his English tutor, he should have seen it coming, but somehow he didn’t, and it was tearing him apart.</p><p>The school backyard seemed like the best option when he didn’t want to listen to his parents discuss with their lawyers and fight about who would get what. He used to stay there after the classes have ended, just sitting there in the grass, reading, doing his homework, listening to music, anything. There were times when Jon stayed with him, told him about this new comic he was reading, or stories about his weekends in Smallville. Colin also came at times, took him to the arcade, to eat ice cream. Even Lian did stay at times, took him to her house made him laugh about her stories about her dad. And it was nice, to ignore that everything he ever came to know was crumbling around him and he could do nothing about it, that it was too late now.</p><p>
  <em> "Come home early after class, don't be hanging around the back of the school yard" </em>
</p><p>Talia spoke softly into his hair. In some way, Damian always felt more close to his mother, she was always the one who went to his tourneys and school reunions, unlike Bruce, who was always too busy for him, and maybe she was too much at times and was a little harsh, a little sharp around the edges, but this was all Damian could get, so he held tight onto it. When he gets on that train of thought he remembers how Dick talks about his parents, how they were with him, and jealousy consumes him, feels bitter when Dick tells him about them, about how they showed affection so freely, how they took him to eat ice cream every Friday after school, how they protected him, how they loved him so unconditionally.</p><p><em>"I was caught up by your teacher..."</em> Dick glanced away from the road for a minute to look at him. Damian moved himself closer to the window, he did not want to have this conversation now, he wanted to forget, just for a while, <em>"she said she can't even reach you cause you're so far..." </em></p><p>Damian felt his throat tighten and the tears burn his eyes, his chest felt so tight his heart could explode. Dick only had to look at him once and he was already pulling the car on the side of the road, dragging him onto his lap, Damian was too big for this, too grown up to be held like this, but he needed it so bad he ignored the throbbing pain the steering wheel caused to his lower back and let himself be held by his older brother, wetting the elder’s shirt with his salty tears. It felt like hours all the time he spent sobbing on the warm chest, but after a while the tears stopped, and his heart felt a little lighter. Dick handed him a bottle of water and wiped the tears off of his face with a sad smile on his lips.</p><p>.</p><p>Damian was in the principal’s office, a mean broken lip and bruises decorating his dark skin. Bruce was the one who came, sadly, Talia was in a meeting and his father was there as soon as the principal called him. The kid didn’t really deserve it, he was laughing at him the way he always did, but he was just so, so angry, so over the edge, he hit him so hard, he remembered a tooth flying out, then the kid’s friends came, and started hitting him, then the teachers came to separate them. Damian wanted to cry so badly, he was so angry, so tired of his parents asking him who he wanted to go with, of having to leave stuff behind, of having to start over again, afraid of leaving Helena behind, of losing the little he got here because of this. Nevertheless he could not bring himself to shed a single tear.</p><p>
  <em> “You've been talking with your fists; we didn't raise you up like this now did we?” </em>
</p><p>Was the first thing Bruce told him on the ride home, he didn’t answer, he couldn’t bring himself to, he knew what Bruce would say if he answered, he would compare him to Dick once again, and right now, he didn’t think he could handle that, so he just kept quiet, wishing once again he could turn back time and all of them right.</p><p>
  <em>There've been changes in this house </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Things you don't know about in this family</em>
</p><p>It was Sunday and Damian was home alone with Helena, his parents went out to see some stuff with their lawyers, the last arrangements, he supposed. Helena was sitting on the floor playing with her dolls, making a mess of the living room, so he got up from the couch and told her to pick up her stuff, she made a fit, said she didn’t want to, he insisted, and then got scared when the little girl started to cry, he kneeled in front of her, trying and failing to make her stop crying, and then, she stopped wailing to speak trough her big tears, words left a print on him.</p><p>‘If I don’t pick them up you will not love me anymore like Talia and Daddy?’</p><p>Damian just stared at her for a while, his mind blank and a mess at the same time, he felt tears form in his eyes, so he hugged Helena, cried on her soft black hair while she held his hand in her tiny ones, and for a moment he wasn’t sure who was holding who.</p><p>
  <em>It don't make sense, but nevertheless </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You gotta believe us, it's all for the best</em>
</p><p>
  <em> It don't make sense </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The way things go</em>
</p>
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